garrison beau scott

We started that day with an incredible breakfast. And we needed it. Hard-boiled eggs, meats, muesli, yogurt, some fruit, bread, coffee. A real breakfast. And then, as we had done on all the previous days we’d been in Prague, it was out the door and a coin flip to see if we’d go right or left. We went right.

And as with all the other days, we had a guide book but it never left the bottom of the napsack, as we were determined to continue to explore this world so new to our senses. It was our second to last day in Prague before we were to board a midnight train to Budapest, so we had pretty much discovered most every corner in the city proper, and today we felt like walking, really walking. And we still had no idea where.

We were soon away from the familiar streets, seeing things for the first time. Prague is easily covered on foot if you have the time, and desire, and proper breakfast. Did I mention that breakfast? Nutella in the coffee? And we had all of those things so it felt good to always be on the verge of something new even though we had developed a glorious sense of familiarity with the city we were already in love with.

Traveling north, and getting out of the Malá Strana (Little Quarter), and the Staré Mésto (Old Town), with Josefov (Jewish Quarter) the last of the known neighborhoods behind us, our sole source of navigation became the Vltava, and so we followed it until it began to rain and we had to take refuge under a bridge.

The rain was short lived, fortunately, and I nearly lost my camera into the river…but we managed to push on, but not before I got this.

Built between 1624 and 1630, Wallenstein Palace was the first large secular building of the Baroque era in Prague. Created as a tribute to himself, Imperial Military Commander Albrecht von Wallenstein intended for his palace to overshadow the Prague Castle.

It was his triumphs over the Protestants during the 30 Years’ War that made Wallenstein an important figure in Prague and vital to the Emperor, Ferdinand II. Maybe it was the fact that Wallenstein portrayed himself as Mars, the God of War, in a ceiling fresco, or maybe it was his designs on obtaining the Crown of Bohemia and plotting with the enemy that ultimately lead to his death by mercenaries on the Emperor’s orders.

Today, this remarkable palace, built by the architect Andrea Spezza, is home to the Czech Senate, but open for those wishing to walk among what has to be one of mankind’s ultimate vanity projects.

All that being said, I’ll show you what a wall from the outside looks like. Those jagged things at the top are actually where the name grotesquery comes from. For some reason, one of the interior walls of the palace’s courtyard is an imitation of a limestone cave covered in stalactites. Go figure.

A friend of mine was married in China Camp State Park, located in San Rafael, California, over-looking the San Francisco Bay. It was a pretty spectacular scene. At the time, I was still living in Santa Barbara, but as soon as I moved to Marin, I made it a point to go back and explore with my camera as opposed to hang out at the open bar.

China Camp has some pretty cool history behind it. And most of that history is still on display. This is of the only remaining building still in operation.

I have a short fuse.

It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, and I’m doing much better, thank you. But like I said in an earlier post, I would love hood-mounted rocket launchers. And I’d use them, which is probably why the DMV has yet to grant my request for the license required.

This image is the perfect example of said short fuse. Not one of my finest moments, and the worst part was I had a witness to the absurd behavior that took place. My wife and I were up on this parapet thing on the Prague Castle, overlooking a rather pleasant scene. When we turned to leave, I noticed this scene, and instantly knew that for it to have any impact, it needed the perfect subject, walking perfectly through it.

And so it began.

In addition to the short fuse, I’m also very, very stubborn, especially when I know what I want, and this is what I wanted. This lone gentleman, wearing a suit and not Bermuda shorts with sandals and socks, walking by himself, through this arch. Not too much to ask for, right?

Now, I don’t know if Ansel cursed the clouds while he waited for the perfect light to hit Half Dome, but I’d like to think he might have. If only because it might, in some small way, justify my behavior during the time I had to wait for the above gentleman, and he alone, to walk through my scene. But even then.

We, I, spend so much of our life looking straight ahead. Maybe it’s the fear of missing the oncoming light from that train steaming down the tracks, heading right for us. Maybe it’s conditioning, or that we’ve forgotten what it was like to follow the stray ant or solitary bird in flight during the strolls of our naive youth.

I try to make it a point to look down, or up, as much as I can when I’m walking with the camera. There’s so much offered at a 45 degree angle to our normal P.O.V.

This was taken during one of the Saturday morning walks when I was mentoring in the First Exposures Photography program through SF Camerawork.